HII lands $165.5M Navy contract for work on new Flight II ship

Aug. 3 (UPI) — The U.S. Navy awarded a $165.5 million contract to Huntington Ingalls for material procurement and engineering work on a new ship, known as LPD 30.

The contract, announced Thursday by the Defense Department, concerns the construction of the first Flight II ship in the Navy’s class of LPD 17 amphibious transport dock ships.

The Flight II ships will replace the Navy’s Whidbey Island- and Harpers Ferry-class ships, according to Huntington Ingalls. The shipbuilder calls LPD 30 a “capable and affordable evolution of the dock landing platform.”

Huntington Ingalls will conduct work, scheduled to end by December 2020, in sites across Mississippi, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Georgia, South Carolina and Iowa.

The Navy is obligating about $82 million in fiscal 2018 shipbuilding and conversion funds at the time of the award.